ten mem­bers of our Coali­tion, and two col­lege stu­dents, met with Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion John King for an ESSA Round­table. We addressed key pieces of the law that fall in our pri­or­i­ties as a Coali­tion, and mem­bers took turns high­light­ing strengths in ESSA and the Depart­ment of Education’s Draft Reg­u­la­tions, as well as request­ing clar­i­ty or strength­en­ing of rules that direct­ly impact equi­ty and access for stu­dents of col­or.

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 In July, ten mem­bers of our Coali­tion Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and two col­lege stu­dents met with Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion John King for an ESSA Round­table. We addressed key pieces of the law that fall in our pri­or­i­ties as a Coali­tion, and mem­bers took turns high­light­ing strengths in ESSA and the Depart­ment of Education’s Draft Reg­u­la­tions, as well as request­ing clar­i­ty or strength­en­ing of rules that direct­ly impact equi­ty and access for stu­dents of col­or.
We high­light­ed sub­group account­abil­i­ty and report­ing, test par­tic­i­pa­tion rates, low-per­form­ing schools and sub­groups, and EL account­abil­i­ty, pro­fi­cien­cy, and report­ing. We also had a lengthy dis­cus­sion about increas­ing the num­ber of diverse teach­ers, and address­ing teacher equi­ty across the state. Sec­re­tary King com­mend­ed our prepa­ra­tion and pas­sion, and mas­tery of the law and its impli­ca­tions for the stu­dents and fam­i­lies that we rep­re­sent. He encour­aged us to make our posi­tions pub­lic when­ev­er pos­si­ble, and to weigh in on the Pub­lic Com­ment page of the Draft Reg­u­la­tions, and reach out to Sen­a­tor Alexan­der to share with him our pri­or­i­ties and rec­om­men­da­tions.
Stay tuned for more infor­ma­tion on that! We were extreme­ly hon­ored to host the Sec­re­tary, and rec­og­nize that the oppor­tu­ni­ty would not have pre­sent­ed itself had we not reached out to him as a broad statewide Coali­tion of diverse stake­hold­ers.